Godzilla in popular culture
As an enduring and iconic symbol of post-World War II Japanese cinematic history, Godzilla has been referenced and parodied numerous times in popular culture. Godzilla and other atomic monsters have appeared in a variety of mediums, including cartoons, film, literature, television, comics, and video games. Due to the nature of American entertainment often parodying other works of fiction, it has become rather rare for Godzilla to not be referenced in an animated/live-action movie/TV show that intends to be comedic and/or having a habit of parodying pop culture. Often it is usually Godzilla's name, his design, and/or the style of his movies where he destroys cities that is parodied the most. Toho is not fond of Godzilla parodies and dislikes them strongly. They argue for their copyrighted material to be protected although there are so many movie/TV references to Godzilla that it's virtually impossible work for Toho to respond to all of them. General Sightings *In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, a poster with King Ghidorah can be seen next to the Turtles' television all throughout most of the series. *In an episode of the first season of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when Krang and his suit turn giant and rampage through the series, one of the turtles says "Where's Godzilla when you really need him?" *In the cartoon Rugrats, there is a fictional dinosaur called Reptar with rounded, blue spike-like appendages on his back, which intentionally causes him to resemble and spoof Godzilla. He also has enemies: Dactar, a pterodactyl that is based on Rodan, and Thorg, a purple gorilla that Reptar beats in the episode, "Toy Palace". Thorg is based on King Kong. *In the Rugrats episode "Angelicon", Angelica as giant monster destroying the city referencing the original Godzilla film from 1954 and climbs up the Empire State Building as a reference to King Kong. *In the Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 2, the toys are trying to reenact Al kidnapping woody using a small replica of the town using Andy's toy cars. Rex comes stomping through the replica by accident, and Ham shouts, "Watch were you're going Godspilla!" Also, while they trying to break out of Al's car to rescue Woody, Mr. Potato Head tells Rex to be still, simultaneously calling him Godzilla. *In the Toy Story Toons short, Partysaurus Rex, Rex, while being played with by Bonnie in the bath tub in a suspense-like moment with rubber ducks, rises slowly from the water with yellow eyes and Godzilla's roar. *In Rugrats In Paris, the babies take control of a giant mechanical Reptar and go through the city unintentionally causing destruction, referencing both Godzilla and MechaGodzilla. They also fight a giant purple hermit crab mecha, and go up the Eiffel Tower, holding up Angelica in its hand, referencing King Kong. Both mechas eventually get destroyed, with the Reptar mecha having its tail, right claw, and head cut off. *In Batman: The Brave And The Bold, when a T-Rex statue was about to fall on a person, one can hear Godzilla's roar. *In Hey Arnold! The Movie, there is a scene showing Helga's father, Bob Pataki has a miniature model of Arnold's neighborhood and Bob plays with the miniature city as he is playing as Godzilla destroying the city. *Ebirah inspired two monsters who appeared in the Nintendo anime Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Ebifryer and Ebizou. Both are giant shrimp monsters who have abilities far stronger than the rest of the cast. *The title of the Destroy All Humans games series use the Godzilla font. Additionally, the series' name could be a reference to Destroy All Monsters. On top of this, in Destroy All Humans! 2, the level boss for Takoshima is a giant lizard named "Kojira," a parody of Gojira. *In an episode of the popular animated TV series The Simpsons called "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo", the plane the Simpson family is in gets attacked by Godzilla, Gamera, Mothra and Rodan. In an earlier episode called Marge in Chains, when Kent Brockman starts talking about the Osaka Flu, a picture of Godzilla's head with a hot water bottle on and a thermometer in his mouth can be seen. *The band Blue Oyster Cult has a song called Godzilla (which is about Godzilla, predictably). *Billy and Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure, the movie for the children's cartoon TV series, "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" had a cameo from Godzilla, as well as Rodan, Anguirus, Gamera, King Ghidorah and Gigan. Another one of "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" episodes called "Giant Billy and Mandy All-out Attack" is a parody of Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. And during the episode there was a monster called Mechagorillasaur which is a parody of Mechani-Kong, Cragera which is a parody of Gamera, and Kittyra which is a parody of King Ghidorah. Godzilla was yellow that time, Anguirus had fire, Gigan was shorter and different, and Rodan had no wings. *In Pokémon, the creature Tyranitar is most likely based upon Godzilla. This could be intentional as many Pokemon have an uncanny resemblance to , such as: Feraligator looks quite a bit like Zilla, although his orange maple leaf-shaped resemble those of the real Godzilla's, Rhyperior bares a slight resemblance to Anguirus, and Nidoking is an obvious reference to Baragon, among many other Pokemon- references. *In the cartoon, Dexter's Laboratory, there are episodes that parodied the kaiju films as well. The episodes are "Monstory", "Last But Not Beast", and "Dial M for Monkey: Magmanamus" and they are a reference to the kaiju films. The giant monsters in that cartoon are parodies of monsters from the Godzilla and Gamera franchises. From the episode, "Last But Not Beast", the giant monster with an axe-shaped head is parody of Godzilla or Gamera. The giant monster, Magmanamous from "Dial M for Monkey: Magmanamus", is a parody of Hedorah. In the episode, "Monstory", Dexter's giant monster form looks like Godzilla. *Godzilla monsters have appeared in Dragon Ball. *Godzilla's roar is uttered in the Camp Lazlo Episode "Creepy Crawly Campy" when Raj's new bug, Elebug, becomes a giant insect that resembles Kamacuras and also done Godzilla's roar. *Several different types of cheap and/or bootleg dinosaur toys that have a roar feature usually have the same roar as Godzilla. *Godzilla also has an appearance in a song 'Ultimate Showdown Of The Ultimate Destiny' by Lemon Demon. *Godzilla made a minor appearance in Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School but only his foot is shown. He also has a daughter that wears a pink dress and bow tie. *In Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, Daffy had a dream of himself singing to monsters and introduces Godzilla but called Smodzilla. Smodzilla eats Daffy at the end of the dream. *In the Cartoon Network show Codename: Kids Next Door, in the episode Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.O.U.R., Numbuh 4's tube was called Tubezilla. *In a episode from 'American Dad!', when Steve Smith was going to introduce an ugly girl, his friend, Toshi, shouted "Godzilla!" In a later episode, Snot says "Oh my Godzilla!" In another episode, Stan tries to scare away Francine's parents, who are Chinese, by wearing a cardboard Godzilla costume. *In the 2002 prequel Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the Republic troops use artillery that bares much resemblance to that of the Japanese defense weapons in various Toho productions. *In the Catscratch episode "King Of All Root Beer," the cats turn into parade floats and fight each other while roaring like Godzilla. At the end of the episode, the Burpos mascot turns into a parade float and roars like Godzilla at the cats, scaring them off. *The Godzilla theme song was played in a Shinchan movie when a giant robot was about to crush a tank. *In the episode of Futurama, "Anthology of Interest I", there is a segment of the episode where Bender and Zoidberg are fighting over the city as giant monsters. That segment is a parody of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2 and other giant monster films. In another episode, a T-Rex is heard with Godzilla's roar. Later, Calculon tells Bender that extras from Godzilla movies are better actors than him. In a later episode, Leela mentions how "diamonds bounce off the tentacle as meatballs bounce off Mothra". In the third Futurama movie, Professor Farnsworth says Godzilla when he is shocked by his destroyed ship. Later in the episode, Farnsworth metions Raymond Burr. *In the Futurama episode "A Clockwork Origin," a robotic plesiosaur has Godzilla's roar. *In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Sheen wants to see a 12-inch monster parody of Godzilla, Bonzilla, in one episode. *In a Family Guy episode, Halloween On Spooner Street, Stewie threatens three bullies into giving them his candy back. One of them throws a rock at Stewie, causing him to fall over. During the fall, he accidentally fires a rocket and miles away, at a city where Godzilla is fighting the army, the rocket kills him, causing the monster to explode into blood. In the episode "Road to the Multiverse", a title card depicts a Godzilla-like Brian attacking a city in Japan. *''South Park'' aired a heavily parody of the Godzilla series called "Mecha-Streisand". *In the South Park episode, "Whale Whores", Stan and his gang made a giant model of Godzilla to scare the Japanese away. *In an episode of Squidbillies, one of the characters says that they had a drew about Godzilla coming in and tearing the house off the ground. His father says that that's impossible since Godzilla lives in Japan and that's too long of a commute. However, the house starts shaking and he screams "It's Godziller!" and the squids all pointlessly run around when the same squid says "We have angered him!". Soon it's revealed that it wasn't Godzilla, but an underground hydroponic greenhouse. *In the movie Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Beavis and Butt-Head have a Godzilla-based dream. Butt-Head kidnapped a woman, making him based on King Kong, and Beavis breathes fire at the army, making him based on Godzilla. The two fight over who wants a 'go' with the woman and the dream ends. *In one of the Simpsons' couch gags, called "Homer Evolution", Homer Simpson evolves from a microbe to a human in about two minutes. In the Cretaceous period, Homer is a rat, and finds himself being chased by Bart, looking like a Tyrannosaurus, until a Stegosaurus, sporting Lisa's appearance, hits the Tyrannosaurus with its tail. The Lisa Stegosaurus lets out a Godzilla roar as Homer hides in a hole and the K-T extinction unfolds. Homer pops out of the hole a couple of seconds later and continues his evolution. *In the Fairly OddParents musical special "Schools Out!", before the mayor makes his speech Godzilla could be seen destroying Dimmsdale. He is based on the appearance in the 1950s. *In the video game "Ed, Edd'n Eddy: The Misedventures", there is a mini-game called "The Revenge of Edzilla". He later fights the Kanker Sisters as the end boss, and they resemble King Ghidorah. The monster "Edzilla" was also in Ed Edd n Eddy TV series, in the episode called "The Day the Ed Stood Still", where Ed is dressed up as a monster, then goes on a rampage, and terrorizes the kids. It does not actually show itself until the middle of the episode. *In the final battle of the film Species 2. When Micheal Mansen's character throws the hay fork into the back of the alien, the alien lets out a Godzilla roar. *Godzilla can be found in many top rated TV shows. He can be seen behind George Costanza in his office of the NY Yankees in the show Seinfeld. He is also seen In the Taylor living room in Home Improvement, as well as in the living room of the show Roseanne. *Godzilla received The MTV Lifetime Achievement award in 1996. He is the only non-"real" person to receive this award. *In the episode of My Life As a Teenage Robot where Jenny falls apart, A blue version of Godzilla is destroying Tokyo. *"The Kaiju" is a monster that appeared the first episode of Total Drama Action, Monster Cash as part of a challenge themed around monster films. It was revealed to be an animatronic at the end of the episode *In Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo a monster that resembled and looked like a Godzilla/Gorgo wrecked power lines then fought the Teen Titans causing a lot of damage based upon Godzillas destruction and the army. *In many episodes of Phineas and Ferb, a Godzilla-like creature has made many appearances. In an episode that takes place in ancient China, a mechanical dragon with Godzilla's roar is sent to fight a giant terracotta warrior. A bystander points out that "they would love this in Japan." *In Wizard101 there are cards that are called Firezilla and Stormzilla. *On the electricity episode of "Bill Nye the Science Guy" a large plug-in is shown. Bill describes it as Godzilla's hairdryer and Godzilla is shown attacking Tokyo in black & white. *In the popular 1980's sit-com ALF, there are many references to Godzilla. In season two, Alf enters the Tanner families' living room and changes the channel on the TV, stating "its "Godzilla Week" on Channel 6!". He exclaims "They're showing Godzilla vs The Thing, Godzilla vs King Kong, and Godzilla vs The Smog Monster!". After watching for a few seconds, he sees one of the monsters (ironically not even from a Godzilla movie at all) roaring at the screen and quickly flees from the room screaming. In season three, Kate uses Godzilla's attack on Tokyo in the original film to explain how an earthquake works to Alf. The same year, Alf refers to a pregnant Kate as "Crabzilla" in reference to her recent moodiness. In season four, when Kate asks Alf to leave the room (something Alf is asked to do a lot in the show), the alien retorts, "You didn't say "Godzilla-Says!". When Kate gives him "the look", Alf reconsiders and says, "But perhaps I...didn't hear!", and beats a hasty retreat to the kitchen. *A red Godzilla robot appeared in Samurai Pizza Cats. *In the sequel Austin Powers in Goldmember. There is a scene where Austin and Foxy Cleopatra are chasing Goldmember through a parade in Tokyo. Besides a suit of the Pokemon Charmander but the car Austin and Foxy are driving runs through a parade float with a Kaiju that looks similar to Godzilla as the theme from the 1954 film plays in the background as people scream "GODZILLA!!!". *In the Show, 30 Rock, there is a restaurant that has "special hour" were two men dress as Godzilla and MechaGodzilla (dressed like Kiryu however) start fighting, and eventually the people dressed up get tired and pass out. *The Big Time Rush episode Big Time Song Writers features a scene where Gustavo breaks out of cement while Godzilla's roar is heard multiple times. *In the Back at the Barnyard episode "Plucky and Me" when the other barn animals discover Plucky, who is a dinosaur, Pip says "That's a Godzilla!". Later, when Mrs. Beady is captured by Plucky, she calls the police and says "I've been captured by a Godzilla!". The policeman later says "Time to hunt some Zilla." Afterwards, Plucky gets on top of the farm house and holds Mrs. Beady in his hand, and the policeman comes in a plane and starts shooting at Plucky (which is a reference to the King Kong films). The policeman hits Plucky with a giant ball of cheese and he falls off, pretending to be dead. Mrs. Beady then says that "it was beauty that killed the beast". *In the "Beyond the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman" episode "Alien Faces", a fact shows up in the bottom left corner of the screen saying "The first Godzilla (1954) suit weighed 200 pounds." *In Doug's First Movie, the main character Doug's second fantasy involves him and his dog Porkchop saving the city from a Godzilla-like monster. *In the Back at the Barnyard episode "Animal Farmers", Bessy calls Otis by "Cowzilla" when he gets an idea of resuming Farmer Buyer's market after he's been sent to the hospital by a tractor accident unintentionally caused by Otis. *In Drawn Together, Ling-Ling is at a film première, when Godzilla appears and chastises the smaller monster for trying to make the Japanese people act too American in their behaviour. He also carries a large placard claiming that Ling-Ling is a 'House Monster'. *In Detective Conan (A.K.A. Case Closed) there is a famous kaiju show with "Gomera" which parodies Godzilla quite often. *A movie was made in 2012 titled Croczilla, and its tagline was "Japan was just the appetizer". *The anime series Gatchaman used a sound clip of Godzilla's roar on occasion for the evil Galactor's mecha beasts as well as the TARDIS sound effect from Doctor Who. *The horror/drama Supernatural series, Godzilla and Mothra has been mentioned several times. Dean Winchester (one of the main characters) says that Mothra vs. Godzilla is his favorite Godzilla movie. *In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series, two clone troopers are nicknamed "Goji" and "Rod". Goji has a Godzilla-like design in his helmet, and Rod has two Rodans in his helmet design. *In the same Episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series, A creature with an uncanny resemblance to Godzilla and Zilla appears and is combated with Maser Cannon-like tanks and is eventually defeated. In the next episode, the creature is unwisely brought to an important planet but breaks loose on a rampage. *In the Danny Phantom episode "Flirting With Disaster", the ghost Technis transforms into a multi-headed monster with Godzilla's roar. *An extinct species of platypus was nicknamed "Platypus Godzilla" when it was discovered in Australia.'Godzilla platypus' fossil discovered in Australia - CBS News *In the show MAD, several references about Godzilla and monsters are made. One showed Godzilla sounding like a chicken. In the part "Ancient Greek Myth Busters", Mothra is destroying Greece along with a minotaur. In "Linkong", King Kong is the president of the U.S. and Mothra makes a brief appearance along with two fairies which are clearly parodies of the ones from Godzilla movies. *In an episode of The Cleveland Show, in an episode that takes place in Japan, a new neighbor named "Mr. Zilla" has to inform the neighborhood that he is a repeated felon. *In the show Uncle Grandpa, a character named Mr. Gus bares a striking resemblance to Godzilla. In an episode that takes place in Japan, they use Mr. Gus to make a giant monster movie named "Guszilla." *In AQWorlds, Deady's giant monster form has Godzilla's . *The Energon Autobot "Signal Flare" from the Transformers franchise transforms into a Maser Cannon, which appear in Godzilla movies. *The title of horror film series The Gingerdeadman utilize the Godzilla font. *The "Bringing Down The House" Angry Birds t-shirt utilizes the Godzilla font. *In the 21st episode of the 1979 Cyborg 009 anime series, the team is watching a recon film that has visual evidence of a living dinosaur. Cyborg 006 immediately thinks they are watching an old kaiju film and tries guessing what the monster is, calling out the names of various Toho monsters: Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Rodan and Mothra. Upon asking if 007 would act in a film, 007 transforms into a giant bipedal komodo dragon lizard who loosely resembles a very cartoonish version of the King of the Monsters. *In the game Days of Monsters, there is a monster called "Repzilla." *In a TV commercial for Charter Internet, Godzilla is seen attacking a few planes. *In one of the dream-battle sequences in the SNES Simpsons' game, Bart's Nightmare, Bart is the city-stomping Bartzilla, facing down enemies Homer Kong and Momthra. *In the Comedy Central series Brickleberry, ''Woody claims he's more afraid of volcanoes than Godzilla in the episode "Aparkalypse" when talking to Bobby Possumcods and Bodean. *In ''The Book of Mormon musical when singing the song "Two By Two", one missionary is sent to Japan which he points out that's where Mothra is. *In Dragon City, there is a dragon type known as Kaiju Dragon who resembles a winged Zilla. *In the Nitrome game Rubble Trouble Tokyo, one of the tools is Mechazilla, an obvious expy of MechaGodzilla, specifically the Heisei incarnation. *There is a children's book called "Dogzilla", in which a dog terrorizes a city of mice. *''Transformers: Energon'' Cruellock bares a striking resemblance to Zilla. Due to a repaint, so does one of the Grimlock toys from Transformers: Age of Extinction. *The character Javil from Transformers: Super-God Masterforce has a slight resemblance to Gigan, with a beak, mandibles, a long tongue and hooks for hands. *In the IDW Transformers Rising Storm #3, Jolt is reading a Godzilla comic book. *The DVD release of CROC that included 4 bonus movies had the tagline "Godzilla of the swamp." TV References Gallery Star Wars inspired artillery.jpg|Maser Cannon-inspired Star Wars Episode II artillery ships 400full.jpg|Godzilla in The Simpsons Episode 226 "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" Simpsons_-_Today_is_not_Mothra's_Day.jpg|"Today is not Mothra's Day" Kojira 1.jpg|Kojira in Destroy All Humans 2 Reptar.png|Reptar from Rugrats TDIkajiu.png Vlcsnap-2012-08-20-23h20m08s4.png|A model of Godzilla in South Park Episode 192 "Whale Whores" King of the Monsters 0001.jpg|Godzilla in Robot Chicken Episode 42 "Squaw Bury Shortcake" Godzilla Toy 0001.jpg|2 Godzillas in Robot Chicken Episode 24 "Celebrity Rocket" Godzilla Destroys a Geisha's House 0001.jpg|Godzilla in Robot Chicken Episode 17 "Operation Rich in Spirit" ScreenHunter 121.jpg|Poof turns into King Ghidorah in the Fairly Odd Parents Moguera SONIC.jpg|Moguera in Sonic X Gigan found!.png|A Fusion Series Gigan figure from the Bandai Creation Godzilla toy line can be seen in this TV advert for 'Stuffies' MrGus.jpg|Mr. Gus from Uncle Grandpa Screenshot 2014-02-16 at 10.23.22 AM.png|Deady's monster form has Godzilla's cameos in Lum 28.jpg|Godzilla vs. the Super X in Urusei Yatsura cameos in lum 29.jpg|An army of flying cameos in Lum 30.jpg|More flying kaiju from Urusei Yatsura Cameos in Lum 31.jpg|Minilla appears in Urusei Yatura Godzilla in Extreme Dinosaurs.jpg|Godzilla in Extreme Dinosaurs Godzilla in Extreme Dinosaurs 2.jpg|Godzilla's second appearance in Extreme Dinosaurs Godzilla in Extreme Dinosaurs 3.jpg|Godzilla without his in Extreme Dinosaurs 10378952_723347004388928_6698918882234229426_n.png|OMGZilla in AQW Kaiju_Dragon_3.png|Dragon City's "Kaiju Dragon", who resembles Zilla Planetary_Issue_2.jpg|Planetary #2 Varan.gif|Varan in an anime Godzilla in Daicon.jpg|Godzilla as he appeared in the Daicon III opening animation Mothra in Daicon.jpg|Mothra Larva smashing the Battle Ship Yamamoto in Daicon IV King_Ghidorah_in_Space_Dandy.jpg|King Ghidorah in Space Dandy Cruellock_Zilla.jpg|Creullock from Transformers: Energon resembles Zilla Javil.jpg|Javil has a slight resemblance to Gigan References External Links *Toho Kingdom. Category:References